Amazon's easy new way to share group photos. Is your phone spying on you by listening the surprising blog post that says yes, Instagram has a fun new way to put you anywhere you can imagine. Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on rich DeMuro and this is Rich on Tech broadcasting live from Los Angeles.
Coast to coast.
This is the show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe that technology should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open up the phone lines at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give me a call. If you have a question about technology. Email is also open. Just go to richon tech dot hit the link that says contact.
Coming up on this week's show, we've.
Got Andrew O'Hara of Apple Insider. Andrew's going to join to talk about the new features in iOS seventeen point two. Don't know if you noticed, but the iPhone got a big, big, big software update this week, and there's lots of new things to check out.
Andrew will talk about those.
Marcia Collier author of eBay for Dummies, is going to join us to talk about tips and tricks for selling and buying on eBay. So this is it. We are in the final stretch of the holiday shopping season, and of course I found myself this week going shopping. So what did I do? I headed to the mall. Wait, what, rich You're the tech guy, Why are you going to
the mall. Shouldn't you be ordering everything online? I get very nostalgic around the holidays, and I still think that the mall is a fantastic way to, you know, get that sarahdipity of like walking into the candle store and be like, Oh, that smells good, let me buy one of those, or you know, smelling the cinnabonds and getting one of those, or you know anything. I guess it all has to do with a lot of sense being piped into the mall, and I'm a sucker for all of them.
So I kind of liked that I went to a bunch of different stores.
I was actually on the hunt for a specific product that was very tough to find, and I was getting a little frustrated because I was like, this is why I shop online. But I kept going and I ended up finding it, and so it was fun and it felt like I accomplished something. And anyway, on the way to the mall, I tell you all this because on the way to the mall, I passed by a best Buy and it had this big sign said newly redesigned, and I was like, ooh, I gotta go in there
and check it out. And so I went inside. The first thing I noticed outside they had these new lockers that you can buy online and pick up outside the store, so the store doesn't even have to be opened. It's like a twenty four seven kind of thing. But this is an experience store. I looked up did some research and they're opening these across the country and so I guess the first one was in Houston in twenty twenty,
and now we're getting them in other places. So the Redesign store have like, you know, all these little places for brands, like they had like fitness, They had home audio theater, like luxury appliances. The geek Squad was set up more like kind of an Apple store. They almost had an Apple store inside the Best Buy store. So it was really really cool, and it seemed like they had a lot more selection as well, which I thought
was really neat. But when I posted this to my Instagram listener, Jim said, hey, Rich, did you notice the big difference? And I said, what? No CDs or DVDs. They are a thing of the past, a relic in this newly redesigned Best Buy. And oh my gosh, I can't believe that I didn't notice that inside the store. But yeah, the whole center of the store used to be dedicated to movies and music and that is no
longer a thing. So another part of my childhood and growing up is gone, just erased off the list of memories. And this got me to thinking, what about all the technology in my short lifetime that I enjoyed? Watch Go In and watch Go Out? And so I made a list, starting with the pager. I mean, these are things that you just don't think of on a daily basis.
The pager.
I remember, I thought I was so cool when I had a beeper, and.
I remember the company that I went to. It was called like Smart.
Beep, and it was like five ninety nine a month for all the beeps you can get, and someone would send a message while it started out a phone number, and then eventually it was like a text message to your beeper and you would call them back. I mean, what a wild thing to think about. Now you had to find a payphone to go call them back. Portable CD player This is how I ran, Like back in the day, I would run with a portable CD player and the thing would jump all over the place, like
you couldn't run with a portable CD player. I had one mounted in my car in like the center area. I like, I mounted it there. Floppy discs, I mean one disc. If you want to install something on your computer, you had to have like a series of eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen discs. And I remember just taking one out, putting the next one in, taking one out, putting the next one in. I think they carried like one megabyte one point four to four or something like that. I don't
quote me, but yeah, not very much. VCRs. I remember when we got a VCR in the house. It was like this was the future of everything. You could watch movies in your house and you had to rewind them and the tape would get stuck once in a while. And that lasted for a long time until we upgraded to the DVD player. And I remember the very first movie we ever watched on it it was Fargo, and we watched the heck out of that movie because guess what, you weren't really buying a lot of DVDs back in
the day because they were expensive. So you had a couple and you just watched them over and over and over and you and you marveled at how clear they were on that screen. Oh, this is really really clear compared to a VCR. And now you look at it and you're like, eh, not so good. Going back a little bit, the Walkman, so of course everyone had a Walkman.
This puts Sony on the map.
I mean, Sony was the tech company back in the day, and they still do a lot of cool stuff, but I mean they're still have the PlayStation obviously, but the Walkman was like, you knew you were living large when you had the Walkman. You put those headphones on, you put that cassette tape in, you pressed play.
It was very TecTile and it was awesome.
Two TVs, of course, plasma TVs later, those were you know, big and heavy, the Sony Tranatron. If you had that in your house, you were you were rich. Basically, you were you were like really doing well, Uh, what else? Dial up internet modems? Dial up modems. I remember the sound a would make when you connected to AOL, and I remember waiting AOL at one point in my youth had a message on the screen that said the Internet
is coming soon. Like there was a point when I was waiting to get on the Internet, and that dial up modem sound was just so iconic, and when you heard it, you knew if you were connecting at a high speed, which was not really that fast, or a low speed, because of the way that sound, the way it made that sound towards the end, that digital handshake. Oh, how about this one? A fax machine? I mean, I remember going with my dad to it might have been Crazy Eddies. I grew up back in New Jersey and
Crazy eddy Our prices are insane. We had so many stores. I didn't even get to like the list of stores that are no longer around. This is just the gadgets that are no longer around. But a fax machine. I remember the salesperson demoing the fax machine. You would put a piece of paper in here and it would pop out the other side, and I said, wait, what is that magic? It was a copy of it, and it took me a bit to figure that out. As a kid. Uh oh yeah, Bobo chimed in with a calculator watch.
Oh I had one of these, the Cassio. I thought it was so cool. Ah, the calculator watch. My friend still has one. I think it's like an I think it's like everything old is New again kind of thing.
I mean, the list goes on and on. Camquarterers.
I remember getting a Camquarder and back in the day, they had these specialized electronics stores and they you went to an electronic store to buy this stuff.
So it wasn't like you went to a Best Buy per se.
You went to like a local electronics store where they had salespeople that you know, they were the smartest kids in the room because they were nerdy and they knew about this stuff and you didn't, and they could sell you anything. Oh, this has the twenty times optical zoom. Wasn't even optical. It was like digital zoom. Oh this has got the twenty times digital zoom with the titles you can do. I mean, it was this was a wild time. A couple other things. Cameras. I remember getting
my first one ten film camera. It was like a cartridge you would put in there GPS navigation, I mean like a garment or a tom Tom. We used to put a GPS navigator in our car, and then the phone took it over.
And I remember when the phone took it over.
It was it was the Moto Droid was the first phone to have turn by turn Google Maps.
And I went to Verizon.
I waited in line, and I put that in my car and I threw out my GPS. I said, I don't need you anymore. I've got my phone.
Now. Two more things, answering machines.
I mean, people used to leave a message, and if you had parents in your house, they would say.
Don't answer the phone. Let them leave a message. I want to hear what they're saying.
And then you never understand as a kid why your parents didn't want to answer the phone and they'd want to hear what this person was saying. And now as an adult, of course, none of us answer our phone. And finally, zip drives. I didn't have a zip drive ever, but that was a big one. Zip drive was a big thing back in the day. All right, coming up on the show, that was fun. I just I love researching this stuff and just it's like we all know about that stuff. We didn't forget about it. It's still
in our brain. But you don't call up those memories until you physically speak it and think about it. And it's really fun to do. Thanks for joining me today on the show eighty to eight Rich one on one. Glad you're here. Eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Give me a call if you have a question about technology.
Oh look at that. Phone lines are already lit up. More rich on Tech coming your way right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple eight Rich one O one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give me a call if you have a question about technology. This is the show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. I answer your questions and we have a
lot of fun. So you can find me online. I am at rich on Tech on all the social media I and rich on Tech dot tv is the website.
Mike and Ventura you're on with Rich.
Hey Rich It's Mike een Loan and Ventura. How are you my friends?
Hey Mike, how you doing? Wow?
Fan of the old podcast.
Yeah, I've been. I told the screener we were a long time friends. I have people my promise to you that I call in and ask you a question for you.
Love it, let's hear it.
Okay, I bought a new HP laptop seventeen inch. It's for four Gigabyt one hundred and twenty eight K. But I noticed when I went shopping for laptops they don't do DVD's in them anymore, DVD players. Rather, I was wondering, other than cost, is there a reason for that?
Good question?
And this is something that I remember when Apple ditched the DVD player or the optical drive on their laptops and everyone was up in arms. Why would Apple do this? But now we've seen the trend with all of our technology where we are getting less and less ways to connect to you know, less ports, less things. It's all USBC now. So here's the reason. I mean, the top two reasons. Number one is that, like I just mentioned it,
best buy, they don't even sell these things anymore. You can't, you know, you got to go to specialized places to buy a DVD or a CD. I mean, they're just not available in a lot of places.
That they used to be.
And why is that well streaming and downloads. Everything nowadays is streamed, And why do companies like streaming Because you don't actually own it. They love when you buy this stuff on digital because most of the time you are buying a limited right to the content, and if you look in the fine print, it's not really yours. They can take it away at any time, and we've seen that happen over and over. So streaming gives these companies more control over their content, which means they can monetize
it in new ways as time goes on. Also, downloads, I mean everything now that you want to purchase software wise isnloadable, and it's faster, it's easier, it costs less for these companies to do, and there's less maintenance. And by the way, if you're buying something that's on a CD, like a software for instance, I mean, it's going to be out of date before you even get it, and you're going to need a software update. So when it comes to computers and laptops and everything thin thin, thin,
I mean that is the name of the game. They want these things to be smaller, they want them to be easier, less moving parts, less things to break. I mean that DVD tray or CD tray, when it pops out, you can break it off, and so it's better for these things just not to have it.
Now.
By the way, you can still purchase a external drive, and there are people that still need these things. You know, if you're archiving to a DVD or something like that, or you're burning a CDX, you're a musician, whatever it is. But I think you're probably sending all your stuff by links anyway. But there are certain people that may need this, and so yes, they still make these drives and you can purchase them and add it on through a USB connection.
Good question, Mike. Great to hear from you. Mike was a caller back in the day. This radio show has its roots in a podcast that I used to do where I used to rig up a phone to my mixture board and try to get people to call in and live stream on Facebook.
And so we've come.
A long way, but Mike was always there for the show. So thanks for calling in, Mike, appreciate it. Let's go to Craig in Des Moines. Craig, you're on with Rich. How you doing Rich, I'm doing great. I hope you can tell.
Yeah, I bought a new phone. I would the guy called a head the new fifree. Well, I bought a new trap, A fourteen that used to call me.
Okay, that's a I'm guessing that's a Samsung.
I'm guessing that's Mobo. Okay, now he's a very good phone. Biggle.
Yeah.
So uh, let me let me see here so that a fourteen from Samsung is actually just with a quick quick search here is like they're best selling phone somehow. Let's see best selling phone in the world. So I'm guessing that this has a combination of good price and features for the money.
Let's see how much this thing costs.
So you're talking about looks like it's about two hundred dollars and that's before any sort of carrier promotions. So if I were you and you want to learn more about this phone, I'd probably go to something like YouTube and just do a quick search. I mean, the first three videos I'm seeing are all about how it's a top selling phone.
But then if you.
Go a little bit lower in the searches, you can see they've got Samsung Galaxy A fourteen for beginners, learn the basics and minutes, the good and the bad. They've got all kinds of tips and tricks on these things. So that's what I would do if you're looking to get some more information on this phone. It's it's a top selling phone. Look, people forget that Samsung. They come out with so many different phones. They've got so many
different models, and they are a very worldwide company. So the A fourteen is part of their more budget lineup. The A lineup is their budget, the S is their flagship, and the Z is their foldables. So those are the three lines that Samsung has a budget S you know, premium flagships, and then the Z is the foldables. So I think you got a great phone there for what you need and hopefully it proves to be pretty good. All right, Amazon, I want to tell you about this
before we had to break here. Amazon has a easy new way to share photos among a group. This came in just in time for the holidays. Event photos sharing. You could open up the Amazon Photos app on iOS for now in the upper right hand corner. There's a little icon that looks like a party. You tap that and you can now generate a link that you can share with guests and anyone can upload and contribute pictures to this shared album even if they don't log in.
They don't even need an Amazon Photos account. And I tested this the other night. I went to a group game and I sent the link to everyone and people did upload photos.
So anyway, open.
Up the Amazon Photos app look for the new party icon if you want a very easy way to share photos with a group. Andrew O'Hara with Apple Insider coming up next to talk new features on the iPhone. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology at Triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. If you are listening and you have a question about technology, maybe you need a recommendation or an app or a just something's troubling, you give me a call and we'll try to figure it out. Joining me now is Andrew O'Hara of Apple Insider.
Andrew, thanks so much for joining me.
Yeah, of course, Rich anytime.
So let's talk about this big software update that the iPhone got iOS seventeen point two.
This was a big one. Huh.
This is a big update.
These point releases that are typically called are going to be the big update between Apples yearly cycle, and we have a ton of new features that arrived with this update.
So I think the most prominent one that I noticed was the Journal app because it put a new icon on my home screen. So what is the deal with the new journal app?
Basically, the Apple has been, you know, exploring different first party apps that it can offer users and doing it in a very secure and private way, and the Journal app.
Is just the latest example of that.
So basically it is a fairly minimalistic journal app that puts privacy and security front and center, so you're able to share your thoughts, reflect on things, and it can provide on device recommendations based on like where you've been, what you've done, and you add things like photos and locations, you know, obvious nippets, all of that, and it's just like simplified journal app that you can look back on.
Andrew, I'm just you're breaking up just a little bit, so I'm going to ask you to move to a different a little bit of a better location for your signal, but because I want to hear what you're saying, because
this stuff is really important. I noticed with the Journal app, which I thought was really cool is that not only did Apple introduce their own which is pretty basic, but they also came up with this new system where pretty much any journal app can tap into these new suggestions that you're talking about and implement that in their app. So the app that I use called day one, it said, hey,
do you want to try out these new suggestions? And it's so cool because it'll say, we saw that you recently went out to a basketball game, or you recently connected with this person, and you can start an entry based on things that you're doing in your life.
Exactly.
And it's processing all that stuff locally, which I think is one of the important parts. It's not sending things off to your server. It's being analyzed somewhere. It's all happening on your iPhone.
Yeah.
That's the main thing is that these apps that you're downloading, like if it's a third party app, is not getting access to everything that it's seeing in those suggestions. And that was kind of the brilliance of Apple's implementation there. The action button on the iPhone fifteen and fifteen promacs got a new option to translate.
I thought that was pretty cool. I tested this out.
For that action button, you know, hold down for a second and it's going to pop up right on the top of your screen. Allow you to translate a conversation in real time. So if you are traveling abroad you don't know the local language, really easy to translate what you're saying two another language, or what someone else is saying, you know, back to English.
It's very cool and easy to do.
Okay, Andrew, we're still having trouble with the connection. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have Kim call you at your phone number and we'll get you back on on the regular phone line and we'll see if that helps.
So we'll come right back to you in just a couple of minutes.
Here while we connect with Andrew, let me tell you about this.
This is a feature that Apple.
They didn't add this in the new software update, but it's coming soon to the iPhone. And this is a new feature called stolen Device Protection. So this is something that Wall Street Journal was reporting about. Basically, thieves were watching people enter their passcodes into their iPhone and then they would they would steal the iPhone and then use that password to lock the victim out of their iCloud, steal money, or gain access to all of their saved passwords,
and this was really a major problem. And so basically Wall Street Journal reported about this a lot. They kept kind of mentioning it, and Apple actually said, I guess they took notice. And so now this stolen device protection is in beta testing. It will be included in a future software update. You will have to manually enable it. But it's actually quite smart. So even if someone gets your passcode, which by the way, you always protect that
and favor face ID or touch ID when possible. But if this person steals your phone and they, let's say it gets your passcode and they, of course they're going to try to make like major changes to your account, there's going to be an hour long delay. And if you are away from your familiar location, so if you're not at home, you're not at work, your phone is
not really going to allow these major changes. So that's pretty smart because think about it, the person who steals your phone is going to immediately take it to you know, their underground layer or wherever they go where they're going to steal phones and try to steal all your information. So that was pretty cool. The other thing, and I think I mentioned this on this very radio show. Is
the fact that iCloud keychain. You can unlock that with a passcode and now, and that means someone would have access to all of your passwords if they're stored on your phone. And now you can't do that anymore. Now you have to use face ID or touch ID to authenticate that. So this is really smart. I think this is great. Again, it's called stolen Device protection. You will
have to activate it. But if you're worried about your iPhone and someone's stealing all your information, that is something that I think is going to be a great addition. All right, I think we have Andrew back. Andrew you back.
I am bad. Okay, better than ever?
Ah, much better, much better. You sound great, Okay, So let's talk about this now. This is really very specialized. Back to the new features in iOS seventeen point two, the spatial video capture. This is really for the upcoming Vision Pro right.
Yes, this is basically right now almost exclusively for Vision Pro when it launches early next year. There have been some people who've been able to convert this spatial video to work with other devices like the Quest that's out there, but Apple designed this for Vision Pro and using the fifteen Pro fifteen promacs, you can record all of your kind of memories in spatial video and then play them
back on the Vision Pro when I launched it. So it's kind of like you can start recording these things now and then experience them once that headset comes out.
That's pretty cool.
And I actually, you know, I got a demo of the Vision Pro now. I know they've given some of the influencers like new demos of like the spatial video capture and stuff. I didn't get that, but I saw it in the original demo and I watched like these kids like blowing out candles on a birthday cake, and it was pretty wild. I mean, it's like it's it looks like something out of a sci fi movie that you're experiencing in real time.
It's really cool. And I think panorama photos are also really going to look cool on Vision Pro. So I've been capturing more spatial video now and a lot more panorama than I ever had.
In the past to get prepared for that headset. You're gonna you're gonna spring for the thirty five hundred bucks. I guess you have to write because you need you got to review it right.
You know, it's for the it's for work, all the tell my accountant it's for work. But realistically too, even if I wasn't, you know, picking up this first generation unit that was going to be coming out of lower cost units down the line, you know, like in another year or so, And even if I didn't spend the money on this original vision pro, I'd like to have those things, you know, if I ever did pick one up in even two years. So I don't see it being bad to be prepared.
What other seven point seventeen point two features do you think we should know about?
There's still a lot of really cool ones. One of my favorite new ones is being able to ask SIORI about health data on a type one diabetic and I can just ask, you know, Apple assistant, well, what was my blood shirted this morning? And if I have a data in the health app, it's able to tell me. You can also check things like your fitness rings, all
with your voice. There's a new Favorite Songs playlist, so anything you've added as a favorite ines of Apple Music can automatically be added to the Favorites playlist for you. And g TOO is arriving on the iPhone thirteen and the iPhone fourteen alongside the iPhone fifteen. Before CH two chargers stake here before.
The holidays, and what is the advantage of the CHI two chargers. I know that I interviewed someone at EFA about them, and I mean number one, they're going to come to Android as well, which is nice.
But what the advantages of G two.
Well, right now, before G two, there's two basic wireless standards. You've got Apples mag Safe, which can do up to fifteen lots of power on your iPhone. It's quite fast, and at the same time, there's also regular CHI but it will only go up to seven and a half lots because of Apple plementations. Apple kind of almost open source mag Safe and gave the Maxi technology to the Wireless Power Consortion to build G two as this standard
that'll work across platforms, iPhone and androids. So when these things come out, they're not going to require an Apple certification. We should see lower price coins and the same fifteen lots of magnetic charging that we're getting with mag Safe. So I think this is just going to be meaning a lot more choice for consumers at hopefully lower price points.
And I know you cover Apple stuff, but that it sounds like there's going to be more like mag safe style accessories for Android phones too.
Huh.
Absolutely, We've already seen like magnet inside of Android cases, but now I think we're going to start to see flag Ship Android phones building in she too, which is essentially mag stakes. So we're with mactually kind of coming to Android. And yeah, that I mean, we're gonna get a lot more accessories that are in work across platforms.
That's exciting, very cool stuff, very exciting. Apple iOS seventeen point two. Do you recommend that people do these updates the day they're released or do we have to wait a couple days anymore?
Or those days over of like issues with these things?
Well, Apple goes through some pretty stenuins beta cygles these days. There is a public data that people can try out ahead of time. By the time you know, we're getting to a full release, they are pretty stable. I usually recommend people maybe wait a day just to see if there's any mass issue that happened to be impacting. But right now I have not heard of any dat effects from seventeen point two, and I think it's a pretty safe update to download.
Yeah, I did it. I got caught once. This was many many years ago. I was one of those people that would like continually do the update, like try to like get it as soon as it came out, and it bricked my phone for like twenty four hours.
My cellular did not work. And that was many many years ago.
But I learned my lesson, and now I do it, you know, maybe like the night or something like that, Like I give it a couple hours at least.
Absolutely, I'm on the beta train perpetually, and it's definitely it's caused problems and many times, but it's what I do, uh, you know, just to get these speeches out there for everyone.
I mean, look, if you if you work for a website named Apple Insider, you gotta do the update as soon as it comes out. Andrew O'Hara, thanks so much for joining me today.
Absolutely appreciate it.
Check it out appleinsider dot com. Uh, coming up, does your smartphone listen to you? This is a surprising revelation in this whole tinfoil hat theory thing. We'll talk about it. Plus, your call is a triple eight rich one oh one eighty eight seven four two four one zero one. Welcome back, to Rich on tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology at triple eight Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Let's go
to uh Gerald Gerald's in Siami Valley. Gerald, you're on with Rich.
Good morning, Rich, Good morning.
Yeah. I just wanted to take it back to the early nineteen eighties.
Oh gosh, okay, here we go.
Yeah. Back then I bought my first moblum there was three hundred bus per second.
Oh wow, that's slow.
And well even further back before that, my first computer was a Commodore VIC twenty. It had five K of memory, and if you wanted to store a program, there's a little cassette player that is connected to it, and you could actually buy games the cassette to play with it.
Wow, a cassette to play a game.
Yeah, you buy a little it's a cassette instead of a you know, instead of a disk. It was a cassette. Oh wow, we have a game like Raid on a rat radio, you know, very printive games.
Okay, so that was a little bit different.
Okay, so you you've been you've been computing for a while, it sounds like yes, And what do you make of.
What do you make of all the stuff today? Do you keep up with it?
Oh?
Yeah, I still I'm still a galer actually even today, but I still keep up like that unless my son is a he's a network engineer. So anything that I lacked he helped.
Me out also. And what moved then I moved on to an Apple to E. That was a big move and it had a UH and it came with one in five eight and a half in floppy dot. But the main thing I was speaking about back then, in the early eighties, there was a it was a network or I don't even know what you called. It's called the Okay, which which was after after a few years, it was about all about buying Comfy Serve.
You probably, Oh yeah, I was on Comfy Surf okay.
Yeah.
Before that, it was the Force Okay. And that was my first really my first bulletin boards system BBS exist, and I still remember I couldn't I think that was the highlight of that. I remember I couldn't figure out this one part of this game called on Tima three and I posted the question and I think something like eleven year old kid gave me. The answer was wonderful.
I love it. I love that.
That's when the world was just like I think it was like the same experience I had, that the world just kind of like opened up to you like it used to be in our lives. We had us, our friends, our family, and it was kind of like limited to the information that those people had or what you can find the library. And then the idea that you can post something online and get all these people to respond
is just incredible. And by the way, I used the first time I ever looked up a not a cheat, but like a tip on YouTube for a video game was in Super Mario Odyssey and I'm sitting there playing it on a Saturday morning and I'm like, I can't beat this boss. I was like, I wonder if YouTube has a video about this, And sure enough, I just like watched all these videos and I beat the boss in like an hour.
Yeah, I'm wondering how people nowadays. Well, you know, first of all, before I even buy a game, I preview it on YouTube.
Oh yeah, of course.
Back in the day, you know, you just you're bonding and hope that you enjoyed. But so as I say today, you know, like any problem I had, you know, you go to YouTube to figure it out.
You know.
See, I don't know how I did it before outside of the source.
Well somehow we all survived. Gerald, Thanks for the call. I really appreciate Do you like the show? You enjoy listening to it?
Or enjoy my watch and listen to you every Saturday morning?
Perfect? We love it. Thank you, Gerald, appreciate it. Happy Holidays, Thank you too. Thanks for the call. Let's go to uh Let's go to Ron. What are the chances of that we have two Rons here? We have Ron and Kenoga Park. Let's go to Ron at Canoga Park. Ron, you're on with Rich.
Thank you Rich. I'm using a Google Pixel four A and its security update period has lapsed, so they're not doing any more security updates. I love the phone. That's got a great camera. It's been fine for me, and I don't want to spend the money to get another phone. But what do you think should I have to do that?
Okay, So this I'm looking at this website. I don't know if you've heard of it, called end of life dot date.
Have you heard of that?
No? I haven't.
Okay, So it's a great website that gives you kind of all of the the end dates of you know these phones devices anything. So the Pixel four A let's see, it was released three years ago November fifth, twenty twenty and let's see the guaranteed security updates ended one month and one week ago on November fourth, twenty twenty three. So you're right in the fact that you are at the end of life for this device. Now, does it
mean you have to get a new one immediately. No, but it's a four A, it's a couple of years old, and I would say right now during the holidays, the Pixel eight is I know it's a little bit more expensive than you know. You're saying you don't want to spend the money, but the Pixel eight has got some really good deals and they're doing seven years of security updates. So if you spent the money now, you would get seven more years of security updates for that Pixel eight.
And so I think that's probably the way you want to go. Since you already know the Pixel phone, you love it, it works great. I've been testing the Pixel eight Pro. It's one of my favorite phones of the year, probably my favorite phone of the year with androids, and so I think there's nothing to lose here except for the that you know, just find a good deal on this phone, on this Pixel eight, and I think that
you'll really like it. And the good news is everything's going to transfer over nice and easily because you're going from pixel to pixel.
Now.
I know pixels when they first came out, they were given like unlimited photo storage and all this stuff that is no longer a thing, but the pixels have been getting more and more popular, and I think that the reason I would recommend because you might be thinking, rich, maybe I should go for the seven A because it's a lot cheaper. That's kind of like the A line on the pixel is the less expensive. It's more of
the budget pixel. So you've got the Pixel A, then you've got the Pixel regular, the eight, and then you've got the Pixel Pro. And so there's like three levels of pixels every year, and the A model is like the budget version, but this year's A model, the seven A does not have the seven years of updates. So for that reason, ron I would say go with the Pixel eight. I think you'll love it and it'll be a nice, nice upgrade from your current phone. All right,
coming up next is that smartphone listening to you. We're gonna have the results of a surprising blog post, plus your calls at Triple eight rich one on one. You're listening to rich on tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. We are on the slide. If you were on a sled, this would be the snowy hill in front of you, and there
is no stopping before the holidays. You are just going all the way down that hill. And yes, I did that as a kid. I grew up in New Jersey and we had snow. As soon as it would snow, you go to the top of the hill and you would just sled all the way. And where I lived, the hill that we sled on led right into the highway. So I don't think that nowadays people would be allowed
to do what we did. But we slid there all day long, and for some reason, the snow in New Jersey always melted like instantly, like you would get it for one day. You might be at a holiday party. Last night, I was hanging out with some friends at a gathering, and you know, I had a drink in my hand and my friend's like, oh, can I take a sip? And I was like no, and he was really like taking aback.
I was like, no, I don't.
I don't share my drinks. I you know, I don't want to get sick. And so he was like, okay, I understand that. And I'm like, oh, my wife will She'll share her drink at anyone. I go go ask her for a sip and she's like, no, I don't. Anyway, it got me to thinking that, you know, not everyone feels the way I do, and so I put it on my Facebook page, Facebook dot Com, slash rich on tech. I said, a friend asks you for a sip of
your drink? Do you say yes or no? And, as you might expect, through the miracle of Facebook, lots of comments float in, and so I popped them into uh chat. Gibten asked it to summarize them, and Chatchibat says the comments on whether people would share a drink with someone else show a mix of opinions. Some commenters are open to sharing, particularly with friends or family, and some suggest
using a fresh straw or pouring into another cup. On the other hand, many express concerns about hygiene and germs. With some outright refusing to share. Some comments are humorous while others are serious, reflecting the varied attitudes towards sharing drinks and personal boundaries regarding health and safety. Yeah, some people will like pour the drink into their mouth, you know, like just like pour it from the top. I don't care if you want to drink it. I just don't
want to drink it after you drink it. I mean nothing against you. I just you know, I want to keep my streak of being in here to do my radio show. And you know, it's tough. It's like this is the season where everyone is sick. Triple eight Rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. You can find me online at rich on tech dot TV. The question is is your smartphone listening to you? I'll tell you about that right after we talked to Ron in Orange County.
You're on, You're on with Rich Rich.
How are you good? I hope. I am am a small businessman. I've been doing it for years and I'm kind of like old school. And what my question is is I need a software. I tried Trello and it's too big for me. Something to organize me better. In other words, taking my client's information. I have a certain procedures that I do with him, certain tasks that I have to do with it. You need to calendar it, I need to put them on a future mailing list. And that type of thing helped me out.
Oh okay, So you need kind of like a like a kind of a CMS, like almost like a content management system or CRM, right.
Right, that maybe we'll bring up on a dashboard. I would touch the client name and boom, it would show me everything that I've done, everything that I need to do, everything that I maybe would like to do in the future with them, and that type of thing.
Yeah, I mean I and I've I've tried a lot of these, uh you know a lot of these different programs like I've tried to do list and uh Trello like you mentioned, and I am on a pursuit to get organized.
Notion is another one.
So I think, Yeah, Notion is like an all in one kind of program that can do a lot of stuff. I don't think specifically for what you want that's going to do it, but what.
I would do one more thing, Rich, let me say one more thing. I'm an older guy. Yeah, I for me to learn something. It's a task if it is, but I need something, but I don't need to go through all the series of the learning process in order to discovery that I don't need it.
Yeah, that's it's tough because you know, these all come with a learning curve. And you know, my dad runs a small business, and when I was younger, I would always say, Dad, why aren't you doing things this way, like this really high tech way? And he said, Rich, you know, I don't want to do it that way. Like I like my proposals and everything kind of done the way I've done done them for years, and I get that. So there always is a learning a learning
curve with some of these things. But what I would say is that you probably need one of these kind of one of these startups that is a little bit like you know, Microsoft obviously has a program to do something like this Salesforce SAP, but those are like the big big companies, and I think what they offer is probably going to be way too much for what you want. So I think you would probably want something that's more
geared towards a small business. And so the keyword that you want to search online is CRM, right, and so CRM is a I gotta I gotta remember that's like content Oh gosh, content relationship management. What does that stand for? I gotta see what that stands for? Customer relationship management. So that's the kind of program that you're looking for, right, And I think some of the small businesses that do stuff like that going to be something like Zoho z O h o and spot hub Spot and those are
going to be some some places to start. The other one that is a little bit more modern and kind of new is a company called, let's see, this is called Fresh Sales. So that's Fresh Sales. And I when I was doing stuff for my small my side business, I guess you can call it. When I wrote my book, I was using a what was I using? I was using oh my gosh, trying to remember it now, fresh books I think it was called. And Fresh Books was
really really excellent. Everything was like very simple and clear and new and modern, and that really appealed to me. And that's accounting software. So I don't know if it's exactly what you need, but that may be part of it. But I think that's the main thing is you just have to kind of look for one of these programs, and I can't say which one's going to work for you.
You have to look and read the website, and if the website makes no sense to you, then I don't think the program's going to make any sense to you.
But that's what my recommendation would be is just check out, you know, take it and just kind of look through these ones that I mentioned and see which one appeals to you most, which one has the most generous kind of pricing that works for your company, and how long the you know, like some of these have a demo where you can go right on them and check it out and see how it works and actually use it.
But I agree, I think you want something simple because if it's not simple, you're just not going to use it. And that's the main thing is you want to be able to use this ron. So those are my suggestions. Now you've got your homework, take a look at them and let me know what you think, and you can email me at rich on tech dot TV.
I love getting follow.
Ups and I'll read those in the feedback segment later in the show. Thanks for the call today, appreciate it. So does your smartphone listen to you? Every person in the world seems to have a hot take on this, and you know you've already seen it. You talk about something, next thing, you know it is advertising to you what you just mentioned your friend on Instagram, Facebook, whatever. And these companies forever have said we don't listen to you. We can't listen to you. It's just not a thing.
But they have ways of scanning what you're doing. So they're looking at, you know, a lot of different clues. Right, So the people you hang out with, where your phone is, the locations you're at. Bluetooth sometimes, like I went into CVS today and I said, hey, can we use Bluetooth on your phone?
It's a beacon.
And what they're doing is, if it's being used, is that they can see exactly where I am in that store. So if I spent a lot of time in the diaper aisle, they might end up sending me a coupon for diapers. And yes, this stuff really really happens. There is so there's entire you know, there are degrees in marketing that people have with data analytics for this stuff. Anyway, four or four Media found a blog post from a media group based out of Atlanta that said, yeah, we
can listen to people's smartphones and smart TVs. We can listen to their conversations, and we can target ads based on these. We call it active listening. It picks up conversations which help local advertise target consumers based on their spoken words. The technology can detect phrases relevant to products and services. Now, as soon as this website posted about this active listening feature, the company offering it took down the blog post, which of course just added some more
mystique to this whole thing. So now it is a deleted blog post, and it did address the legality of active listening, saying it was legal as long as it's included in the terms of use when you download an app or on your device. Now, who reads those? Nobody reads those? So what does this all mean? I mean, look, at the end of the day, your phone is supposed
to tell you when your microphone is on. When it is active, both iPhone and Android, you will see a little icon in the upper right hand corner that will light up when your microphone is on. And Apple added this and Android added this as a way to show people, Hey,
this is putting you in control. You know when your phone is listening to you, so take notice of that, and you can actually look on your iPhone if you swipe down from the upper right hand corner and something was using your camera or your microphone, it will tell you. It will actually keep a little kind of a notification up there. See like I just did it, and it's showing me that Instagram was using my camera. So if you swipe down after you use something like an app,
it will tell you what it used. It's telling me whether you use my location, Instagram used my camera. That's on the iPhone and on Android, you can go into settings and see a history of which apps accessed your microphone and camera. So, I don't know, this sounds a little bit too odd. I don't think they would be promoting the fact that they can listen to users conversations. But because we've all seen that happen, we know it definitely seems to be the case. All Right, the mystery
will just continue. Coming up on the show, We've got Marcia Collier, author of eBay for Dummies. Marsha's going to talk to us about tips and tricks for eBay and a new feature on in Graham that can put you anywhere thanks to the magic of AI eighty eight. Rich one oh one, you're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology. I got a bit of feedback when we talk about
the songs that we play on the radio. The folks that listen on the podcast don't get to hear them, and so they're very upset when Bobo and I talked back and forth about the merits of a song, and I say, oh, I love this song and you can't hear it on the podcast because we strip it out. And so I guess if I mentioned a song like this one cold Play, I will say I listen. I think that CD was like one of the first that I just like, I think it got burned out for how much I listened to it, and.
I really listen.
I remember watching the video for Yellow and it was so different because it was like just the main guy, Chris walking on a beach and like just the time. It was like all shot in one kind of one shot the whole time, one steady shot, continuous and anyway, So now you know I mentioned the song.
What was that song? Was that? That was a scientist? Right Scientist? By Coldplay? There you go. Now I sounded like DJ Rich.
Bobo actually is a DJ in his other capacity, so he's probably laughing at me trying to be hey Rich on the radio. By the way, and this is what I love about this show. When we mentioned stuff, it is a community and so on Twitter, Peter says pipe drive is a very easy CMS and that was for our last caller, Ron in Orange County. So check out pipe Drive. And then when I googled pipe drive, they actually,
this is the other thing. Sometimes when you google stuff you get the good alternatives to it ads and so it says you meant Honeybook, right, So Honeybook is the all in one small business CRM. So there's just you know, there's a lot of these things. Again, you know, you gotta you gotta just pick which one works for you. Let's go to h Vivian. Vivian is in Sun City, California. Vivian, you're on with Rich.
Yes, uh, my usin has the I phone at S and we want to change to our new carrier. And they one that we're with, they're saying they can't.
Unlock the phone.
They can unlock the phone that you already have iPhone se right, and who did you buy the phone?
From the mobile.
Okay, so you bought it from T Mobile. How long have you had it?
Okay?
So?
Uh?
And are you on any sort of contract with T Mobile?
No?
Okay, So T mobile sim unlock policy is at least three hundred and sixty five days. So typically when you buy a device from one cellular company, they and not all of them do this, by the way.
Some of them do, some of them don't.
You really have to, and it's it's less prevalent than it was back in the day, but still especially with the contracts you know, nowadays, it's much more monetary based. Where let's say you get a free iPhone quote unquote free iPhone from Verizon or AT and T or T Mobile, it's not really free. They basically give you a pro rated credit every month, so they divide that credit over two years or three years, and you get that credit
towards the price of that phone. And if you leave, you can take the phone, but they're gonna just gonna charge you for the rest of it. So if your device is free and clear and paid for, then you can request from your carrier to unlock it. And from what I'm seeing on T Mobile's website to unlock a phone, we will unlock it free of charge. Device eligibility is
the terminus follows. Device must be sold by T Mobile, must not be reported as lost or stolen, must be in good standing, and you must have been active on the pre the network for forty days if it was financed release, all payments must be made. The balance must be zero and that should satisfy it. So if you're running into issues with the unlock, you know, it seems like you just need to keep calling back until you get someone, or you can keep escalating it to a
different person at T Mobile. But it sounds like there should be no reason why your phone shouldn't be unlocked now. Also, you may you may try this Vivian is go into your settings and then if you go into let's see here. If you go into settings and I believe general and about, there is a place where it will tell you if
there's a carrier lock. So on the iPhone again, go to Settings, General, About and scroll down a little bit and it says carrier lock, and it will say no SIM restrictions if your phone is unlocked and ready to go. So you may not even need to go through T Mobile to bring this to a different company, unless the company you're trying to bring it to is saying you can't bring it because it's locked. But the whole simlock thing is kind of annoying for sure. It's mostly when
you buy the gadget through the cellular company. But again, they all have different rules and regulations for.
When they will unlock this phone.
So if you feel like you're in the right and everything should be fine, then I would just go ahead and keep calling back or keep escalating the customer service call until you get someone who can actually do what you need to do. Thanks for the call, Vivian in Sun City. I hope you get that figured out, because if you want to switch, that's always a nice thing to do if you want to get a better plan.
E three is permanently shutting down. This is the big video game conference that usually happens in Los Angeles June every year. It's been going on since nineteen ninety five. During COVID, there's a lot of cancelations. They canceled it in twenty twenty. It never fully recovered. Then it went all virtual exhibitors were dropping out. Sony does their own thing, Nintendo, Microsoft, they all kind of changed gears so E three the Big Video Game.
Conference no longer happening.
Times are a change in eighty to eight Rich one oh one coming up next E day Tips and Tricks. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out talking technology at Triple eight Rich one oh one. That is eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Give me a call if you have a question about technology. Now joining me is Marcia Collier. She is the author of eBay for Dummies. Marcia, thanks so much for joining me today.
Wow. That's eBay for Dummies tenth edition. I've been doing it since the first edition in nineteen ninety eight.
Wow. That is wild and it's been a while.
I actually we did a story for KTLA many many years ago.
I'm talking you were over here at my house. Yes, I was. I remember.
Let me see I can actually get thanks to the magic of Gmail. This was in twenty fourteen that we did this story. So you're talking almost ten years ago. That is absolutely wild, and you were talking ebab.
Back ten love.
Don't you love the way you can look up on Gmail? Yes, I did something in that. Let me look that keyword it's there. Yes, I love and the one time you need it, though, you can't find it. That's the only problem. This one came up very quickly because I just searched eBay for dummies. So let's talk about eBay. Give me the state of the union with eBay. I mean, obviously still the number one kind of website for buying and selling.
What's the deal with eBay in twenty twenty three? Okay? Well, I started on eBay before it was eBay in nineteen ninety seven. It was auction Web and it didn't become eBay till nineteen ninety eight.
Oh, I put that little nugget of knowledge in your trivia for when you're on Jeopardy.
It was it was called auction Web, auction Web.
Yes, I even have some printouts of sales that I made during those times, and I was doing a lot of shopping, so I got to learn the site real early. How has it evolved over the years, Well, it's gotten bigger, it is, and I do not work for eBay. I want to preface this. I'm an independent and everything I'm telling you is from my heart. I did teach for eBay University throughout the aughts, and I was working for the agency with eBay, And so I love eBay because
you've got a worldwide audience for your stuff. You've got want somebody who wants to buy baseball caps. Did you know that baseball caps? They love them all over the world. You get a Maserati one, you know, at a press thing, you put it up on those Gibson baseball hats. People buy them. Everything you want to sell grandma's old postcards. There are postcard collectors, stamp collectors, coin collectors. I've been selling.
I'm a top rated seller. And to be a top rated seller, you have to keep a certain customer service going, which is kind of what led me to my customer service passion.
Well, eBay is the perfect store. And this is what I always loved about it. When it's just if there's something on there and there's the buyer, you know, you set the price, and you know you come up with a price that you both agree on. And that's what's like the most amazing part about it and why I think this became so popular. But here's my question, because right now a lot of people are using these new services like the let gos and the offer ups and
the Facebook marketplaces. Where do you see eBay. You know when should you use eBay and when should you use one of those?
Well, first of all, just to correct you, on eBay, you don't decide on a price. Sellers can put a fixed price item up on eBay, just as if you were buying on another platform. There are also still auctions, and there's also make offer, which is kind of what you were talking about if somebody you know wants to make an offer on an item. But what sets it
aside really is its person to person. Yeah, you've got big companies on eBay, and the best part of shopping on eBay for anybody who's listening is they have a buyer protection. Anytime you buy something on eBay and it arrives damaged, or arrives not as existent, or you get something else, maybe the seller made a mistake and sent out different items to different people, you can get your
money back. But I always recommend that if you open a box and it's not as described, message the seller through eBay, let them know what the problem is, allow them to make it right before you push the button, say I want to return it, I want a refund, Because a lot of time sellers will make it right on their own and then you're not dinging their reputation on eBay.
Yeah, I mean, unless they are doing this with malicious intent. You know, things get jostled around in the mail or in shipping and something of rives broken or it's you know, it's a little bit different. I think most people are pretty good. And if you immediately go to that negative feedback, it, like you said, it does ruin there. They don't want that, and so they'd rather send you another one or make it right.
So exactly, and when you're selling on eBay, remember you are generally dealing with a mom and pop operation. They may have many more, they may just have a few, and they want to make it right for you rather than going through the procedure on eBay. And again, just clicking I want to return the item really doesn't solve anything. The seller gets charged generally for the shipping back, and it may not be worth it to them. Sometimes they say just keep it.
So, if we're listing something on eBay, how do you stand out? I mean there's probably a lot of things on there. I mean, what are some tips and tricks for that?
Okay, well, absolutely, when you're listing on eBay, you should go through everything. I'm looking at something I listed recently that just sold. There's something called item specifics that when you're listing an item, it might be the universal product code on the box, if you have the box, manufacture part number, what color is it? And each category of eBay has its own set of item specifics, the manufacturer, what model it is from that manufacture, what features does
it have? And if you fill out all these things, eBay is more likely to give you a preferential place in search. Also, eBay offers AI for their listings.
I remember doing a story about that, but I haven't tried it out. Is it pretty good?
It's it's fanciful.
Like all AI.
Yeah, right, it is. You know, fanciful if you know your product. And I always recommend if you're going to sell something on eBay, research it first, or have it be something you're familiar with, like Barbie Dolls. I sell Barbie Dolls. I know all there is about Barbie Dolls, so I know what to put in the description. If I have it converted to AI, it may not be as explicit as I want it to be. So you
have the choice. If you don't know a lot about it, it will pick up the information from what you put in the item specifics. See, so that's why the specifics are also important. And write up a paragraph for you. But always always have a good description. And I said in nineteen ninety eight, have a description that explains the item as well as if there was no picture. A lot of people have quoted me on that, but that's
the truth. Andys always well, always have a description that describes the item as if people couldn't see the picture, And have a picture that shows everything about the item where people wouldn't have to read the description. So by doing those two things, you're really representing your item easily. And it's not that difficult to do. It does take a little time, but to do anything right and to get the largest amount of sales, you want to do it right.
I've always seen those kind of clearance racks at like Target or like office depot, and I'm always tempted. I'm like, oh, I wonder if I can flip this stuff on eBay?
Is that so that you could do?
Oh gosh, oh gosh, that's how I put my daughter through prep school?
Really.
Yeah. There used to be a store called Lomen's and and there are a lot of stores that are, you know, like TJ Max the discount stores, as you mentioned, I would know when the sales started, and I would go in on that day. And let's say Diane von Furstenberg wrap dresses. I did real well with those because a
bunch of them went on sale. I bought like six or seven of them at seventy five dollars each, went smack dab right on eBay and sold them for one hundred and fifty dollars each, which was still cheaper than retail. So people were getting a bargain, but they didn't have access. And I don't think that's called retail arbitrage, but I don't think of it as anything negative because if you know where to get something at a low price, then why not do it and make a profit.
Wow, So people still can start this now, it's not too late.
Well, you don't only have to go out and buy things. Look around your house. You got grandma's old china, sell it by the plate, anything you have around the house, that place in the closet where people have given you gifts and you go, oh, yeah, I really don't want this, pull it out, list it on eBay. It's doing you no good. They said a few years ago that approximately twenty five hundred dollars worth of merchandise was hanging around everybody's house.
Wow.
Good to know, especially around the holidays when we're probably spending more than that's coming in.
So yeah, I stopped doing it. But when I open presents, I used to have a separate This pile goes to Evah.
Don't do that in front of the person giving you the gift.
Oh, this one right outed me.
That's funny. I got a stamp my wife has. Actually, never mind, I'm not going to tell us stories out.
You know.
Let's just put Regifting is definitely a thing sometimes so people people do that, all right, Mark, you get money? Tell me about the book eBay for Dummies.
Uh, eBay for Dummies gives you all the basics. It doesn't tell you any of the fancy stuff. And the thing is, when you're selling on eBay or you're on any platform, the basics are the most important thing. How to make your way through the website and be successful as a beginner. Don't worry about all the offers, the ups, the extras. Just do what I say in the book or just the basics. When you're listing an item. eBay gives a lot of directions, but don't go for the
ups and extras all the time. And if you have an item on eBay that's not selling, instead of relisting it, use the sell similar button because what that'll do is it'll start it as a new listing and it'll go up to the top on eBay's servers.
Oh I like that one. All right, we're gonna end it there. eBay for Dummies. Marshall Collier, thanks so much for joining me today.
Thank you, Rich and have a happy.
Holiday you too.
And if you look on Amazon right now you can get a rival before Christmas.
Makes a great Christmas gift. There you go, all.
Right eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. We got more calls coming up next, and I'm going to tell you about the web browser that has a panic button.
What would you need that for? Rich on Tech more the show coming up next.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology with you. We just got some great tips on selling on eBay. Makes me excited, It makes me want to do that. I have always wanted to have like a little business on eBay. It'd be so fun, But I don't know what would I sell. Selling my book was probably the closest I had to that, but that was on Amazon eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. There's a new web browser with a panic button. I'll
tell you about that in a moment. Let's go to Beverly. Beverly is in Los Angeles.
You're on with Rich.
Hi, Rich, how are you doing?
I'm doing great, Thanks for calling.
Wonderful. Absolutely my family and I love your show. We learned something new every single week.
Ah. I love hearing that. Where's the bell? Bobo?
And so I really need your help. I have a really big gift.
Oh we got applause. Oh we got a pause for applause. Okay, go ahead, Okay.
I need to say in my W nine form to an organization that I'm doing some work for and they want me to email it to them, but I'm not sure that's the safest way to send it. Would encrypted email be better?
Or what do you recommend? Yeah?
I've gone through this too, And to be quite honest, you know, when I do freelance jobs, I always have to send in my info and I always hate doing that, you know, because once it's on a piece of paper and in someone's email box, it is there forever and it can be forwarded and downloaded and sent around.
And so I understand the hesitation.
With that said, I think that, you know, if you're going to send it through Gmail or something like that, it's probably going to be okay as long as they're not forwarding it. I mean, I'd be more concerned about it not getting misguided in transit from Gmail or something like that, but I would be more concerned on the other end when they have it Like that's the big
concerned to me. Now, if you want something that's super secure and secure from the moment you send it to the moment it arrives at their desktop, you probably want something what's called end to end encryption.
Right. Have you heard that term?
I have?
Okay, So there's two types of encryption. There's end to end, which means from the moment it leaves your computer to the moment it gets there, it is encrypted, which means no one can unlock that file, even the provider most of the time.
Right.
And then there's another kind of encryption, which is encrypted in transit, and that's actually a little bit cheaper for companies to implement and a little bit easier, And so most of the things we have nowadays are encrypted in transit unless they specifically advertise end to end encryption. Right, So a couple of services I can recommend if you want to go outside of just sending this through your email.
And you can also, by the way, put a passcode on this PDF if you want, I'm assuming it's a PDF, you can try doing that to give it an extra level of protection. But there's a Proton Have you heard of them? I have not, Okay, So Proton is a great company. Their their whole thing is security, right, so, very very secure email, very secure when it comes to passwords. And they also have Proton Drive, which is end to end encrypted file sharing, and so you can start sharing
on there for free. They always, you know, there's always like a little level of sharing for free, and for this case, it's up to one gigabyte, so that would.
One hundred percent work for you.
You just sign up, you can put your file in the drive, send a link to that file and it will all be encrypted for the whole time. The other one, and this one is not as well known, but it's called Wormhole WO R M H O l E Wormhole dot app. And this is really really simple. It's drag and drop, So you would just take your file, drag it onto their website. It would generate a link and it is end to endingcrypt and you can say when
you want that link to expire. So if you want someone to be able to download it once and then it expires and goes away, that's a very safe way of doing that. So those are the two that I would recommend for you.
Wonderful, Thank you so much.
All right, Beverly, you're going to keep listening now that you've gotten through the show and had your question answered. I assume we didn't answer every question in your life.
No, I am definitely going to keep listening. We my family and I we were there for your original show, so we listen every Weekah.
I love it.
Well, say hi to the family for me. Happy holidays, Beverly, thank.
You, thank you, Happy holidays.
All right, good luck with that.
And if you're sending a W nine, then it sounds like you've got some money coming in, which is always nice. Right eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one uh Opera Opera GX.
This is a web browser.
They have introduced a new feature called Panic Button, designed to protect user screens from prying eyes. So, according to a recent study, thirty six of respondents admit to accessing inappropriate content while at school, work, or home. And that doesn't necessarily mean which you think it means. It could be social media when you're not supposed to be looking at It, could be games, could be online shopping, could be dating websites, and of course you know the stuff
you're thinking of too. But the panic button allows you to quickly mute and pause playback from all tabs and open up a new window with a safe quote unquote bland content. All you have to do is press the F twelve key. You can choose a pre installed safe website or customize your own whatever you want if you want to use the panic button. This is on a specific web browser. Opera GX. This is a web browser that is designed for gamers. You have to activate the
early bird option in the browser settings. You can download OPERAGX from Opera dot com slash GX And I would argue that I actually think this is a good feature in any web browser, like I think Chrome should do this, Like you just need to be able to press something and do you know, pause all the audio, pause all the websites that you're on and just come up with
like the most boring looking spreadsheet. And you know, there's always those times when people just come up to your desk at work and you may be like surfing the web and shopping, and you don't want people to think that you're not doing your work. And so this would be a nice feature to have for anyone. On Instagram, they have a new AI backed Oh this sounds like they're playing me off, Bobo. Bobo's playing me off. Eighty eight Rich one on one eighty eight seven four to
two four one zero one. I'll tell you about Instagram's new AI backgrounds tool.
Coming up.
Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology with you, Triple eight rich one on one eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one. Let's go to Manuel in Los Angeles.
You're on with Rich. Welcome to the show.
Hello, Manuel, you're on with Rich. Okay, I think I hear the radio in the background. I think maybe did you fall asleep one more time?
Manuel?
You there?
Okay, we're going to give you a minute to regroup, and perhaps you'll you'll hear yourself in about a minute when I come through the radio saying your name, and that's when you'll realize, well, we wait for that. AI on Instagram. So if you go to my Instagram at rich on Tech, you will see me in a snow covered winter wonderland. But guess what on my Instagram stories that is not where I was. I was not in snow. I was in the bathroom. It was there is a big mirror, and I took a picture, and it's a
new feature called AI. See it's called backdrop, And so this is an AI feature that lets you reimagine whatever you want in the background of your picture. And you take a picture, AI sort of traces the outline of your body and you can then type in what you want the background to be. And so if you want to be saying I'm being chased by dinosaurs or surrounded by puppies, or at a party or in New York City, whatever you want, you can do this and it's really pretty good.
So the way to do this is.
Swipe into the stories on your Instagram and you can upload a picture. So if you find a picture of yourself, and then you'll see a new icon up in the top. It looks like a little picture with a background and
it'll sparkle. You tap that, it will trace. It'll scan your picture, trace your outline, and then you'll get a text box and inside that textbox you type whatever you want and the suggestions it's giving me a right at a birthday, bash, on a pink brick road, at summer camp, at a fast food joint, shipwrecked on a school bus. And you can spin the dice and get more, or you can type in your own and AI once you type it in will generate your background.
It will look pretty.
I mean I just did on a pink brick road and I can't believe how good this looks. I mean, it is absolutely wild. So if you want to visit Japan, you want to visit Italy, Ireland, Irish fields with cows behind you. It is really really wild what you can do with this, And I'm telling you it's just going to be less and less of reality.
And you can see the before and afters.
I posted a couple before and afters on my stories, so you can see exactly what the picture looked like before I affected it again. The feature is called AI Backdrop and it's inside Instagram Stories. Once you post a picture, look at the top row where you add text and stickers and music and all that stuff. You'll see a new little icon and that's how you access it. All right, I'm told Manuel is on? Manuel you're on with Wretch?
Hey Rich, how are you doing?
I'm good?
What happened? You fall asleep waiting for me?
No, I'm over here cleaning up my apartment.
Ah. Nice?
Okay, well that's always nice, getting a nice and fresh and clean before the party tonight.
That's right, that's right. Look, my friend, I watch you all the time on KTLA five. You for my question is what are the brands that I can get out there for the best value of my money for a computer at home and for the kids to have something on the go as a uh Mac pro, a laptop.
Or what are you?
Okay, how what are you using these computers for? Are they just everyone's getting a computer or what?
Yeah?
Yeah, I want them to have something for them. I want a computer station at home, and and also they could be on the go because they're teenagers, they're going to school and.
Know that you got it. So you want a computer for home.
For home computer, I'd recommend an all in one because you're going to get the most bang for your buck for that. So if you're a member of Costco, they typically have one to two all in one computers that are a really good deal, and so that's where i'd recommend getting that. And usually they're around five hundred to seven hundred dollars and you get a little bit more than you get at a store like a Best Buy,
But i'd recommend the all in one. You can go Windows or you know, Mac with that, but I would I would say you probably like a Windows computer, be fine, and just get the most you can get for the money. So you know, look for the most memory, look for the most storage. But that's what I do for the home computer, because that's not going to move. You're just
gonna put it somewhere. And so why get a laptop which is going to be more expensive and the specs aren't going to be as good When you can get an all in one which is going to be less expensive and you're going to get better specs. You can also go to Best Buy for that and see I was there, Like I said earlier, in the show a couple days ago, and they've got a lot of all in ones. My test for them was to open up the web browser and to do a quick surf of
the web and see how fast it that accomplished. If you're noticing that it's taken a long time to do that, you don't want that computer. And believe me, I went through the line of like five or six of them, and there was a definite difference between those. Now, when it comes to the kids, if they're teenagers, are they in high school or college? Okay, so they're high school and you want these computers to last a little bit. I know that people are gonna be like Rich, of
course you're gonna recommend a MacBook. You love Apple, you're an Apple fanboy. But I'm telling you the MacBooks are going to last a long time. They're gonna be really good, the kids are gonna love them. And yes, they're a little bit more expensive on the outset, but I truly believe that they are an excellent value over the long term. And so I'd probably recommend a MacBook Air for the students, which will last them at least four years, if not more.
And I tell you this, because I buy a Mac computer every couple of years, and I give my old one to a family member. And I've got some family members using computers that are at least, you know, ten years old at this point, and they're still working.
And they're still working.
Yeah, that's my younger brother does. I used to work for Apple, so it gives us all his old stuff.
Oh well, that's the best way to do it. Just ask him for a new one. That's the that's the number one thing to do. And then you go and buy your own. But look, and if you're looking for a Windows computer, which are gonna be less expensive, you're gonna have more choice when it comes to the different models. You know, you can't go wrong with certain companies like obviously HP Dell are very popular, Lenovo are always highly rated. Again, when it comes to the Windows computers, it's really to
me a matter of preference. When it comes to the track pad, you want to make sure you get one that has a good track pad. I think Microsoft surface laptops are also really nice in that aspect. But I think it comes down to the memory and the hard drive. So you want to go with the most memory you can get. So I'm talking minimum sixteen gigabytes. The processor you want to go anything, I would say like an
Intel A five and up. So if you're looking at A three, an Intel Core I three, you don't want to do that because those are just going to be way too slow for you. So I'd say at least a minimum of Core I five, Core I seven is going to be higher. The higher the number there, the
better it's going to be. And then the hard drive, you know, you probably want minimum five twelve gigabytes, and if you can get an SSD which is a solid state drive, which I think most of the computers are these days, but that's going to be the best, the fastest for that. And then when it comes to you know, little things like the ports. Just make sure it has
a bunch of ports that your kids want. And you know, it's really when it comes to laptops, if you're looking outside of Apple, there are so many choices, and it really comes down to I think the specs and the way that the computer physically looks like if it's big and bulky, your kids may not want that, and also the way the keyboard feels. So again, the more you can get into a store and test the keyboard, the
more comfortable you're gonna be. And I guess kids don't really touch type anymore, so they don't care as much about it that I do. I care about the way the keyboard touch types because I still I'm.
Old school like that, you know.
Okay, And then you got to figure out how you're going to pay for all these four laptops because that's not gonna be cheap all at once, so.
Hopefully you got a plan for that as well. Does that help you out? All right?
Man?
Thanks for giving me a call today, and a good thing for cleaning up the apartment. I'm always you always feel better when it's clean, right, Like, it just feels nicer, that's right.
Trying to get it done before the year, and so I could start a first few years.
Ah, that's what I'm talking about. Yep, twenty four. Well, happy holidays and have a great.
Day, uh you as will, my friend?
All right, thanks a lot.
All right, let's see we got one minute, so I can tell you about one quick thing. I'll tell you about the new self service TSA checkpoint. What could possibly go wrong? This will happen in Las Vegas come January. It's called screening at speed. It's going to be at Harry Reid International Airport beginning January twenty twenty three. This is going to let people go through security screening all by themselves, so they basically come up against a computer screen.
The computer will scan them, it will tell them if they need to take more things out of their pockets, if they have, like you know, something in there, and it will have an automated entry and exit doors. And so basically you can't get out of this thing until you get all the stuff out of your pockets and the computer thinks you're okay to move on. And if you can, you don't have to see a TSA agent. If you can't, it will flip you over to a
TSA officer. Pretty wild self service everything these days. Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four two four to one zero one. Why does a minute sound so fast on the radio? How does that happen? If you're listening to rich on Tech, Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at Triple eight. Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Let's go to Neil Neil and Los Angeles you're on with Rich.
Yeah, I have a hearing gaide system. It's called Resound, and they offer a device that allows you to talk on the telephone and get it through your hearing aid very clearly. However, come to find out with the manufacturer of the hearing aid that my Samsung S eight is not new enough everywhere in S nine or S ten or so they would have that program, but the essay doesn't.
And so that puts me either in the market for a new one or or some go around that I can still get this feature with the hearing gad Okay.
And what's the reason why the essay is not compatible? Is it a software issue or a hardware issued?
They software, they don't offer the device. I guess in the software that will that's adaptable to the ESS eight.
Okay, And and did this us.
I've never had it before. I'm kind of new to hearing gags anyhow. But so, man, I'm talking to you now without hearing gate. But there's you know, I hear relatively reasonably well, but I miss letters at the beginning, which are typically hearing a issues. So this hearing aid would provide a opportunity. All I do is click it on my cell phone under phone, and I'm it's downloaded to my cell phone by the way in the software, and then I will be able to get the conversation
on my hearing aid. I don't know if it's too convoluted, if you got the picture of what I'm trying to find.
Yeah, no, no, I no, I totally understand. I mean, here's the thing.
So, the Samsung Galaxy S eight was released in twenty seventeen, so you're talking, you know, four, five, six, almost seven years old. So I'm assuming there's no more software updates for this, which puts it at a risk of you know, viruses and malware and any sort of issues that could arise there. That's the least of my concerns. I don't
think that's going to happen with you. But I would say it sounds to me like these hearing aids are something that would be very beneficial to your everyday life, and so I would probably do anything I can to get them to work with my phone. I don't think there's a workaround. I think that this resound company has tested the phones that this works with. They want it to be a good experience for you. Are these prescription or non prescription.
Prescription through the ideology dequipment.
Okay, So I would probably upgrade my phone. And I don't take upgrades lightly because I understand that it costs money, and I understand that not everyone wants to do that, but I think that the benefits outweigh the expenditure at this point. And you've already gone as far as getting these hearing aids. You want them to work with your phone, and I think if they don't, you're only getting half the benefit out of these.
Correct, that's correct, Yeah, correct.
So I would I would kind of backtrack and see which phones are compatible with the hearing aids?
Are you?
From what I understand, most of the newer phones are all compatible, okay. And so I've had the Samsung to several generations, and I'm kind of wondering. I don't want a bigger phone than the Essay, and I just want that's a very adequate size. Okay, But I want a good phone, and I know my my children have the I'll have this marchphone, the iPhone, yes, iPhone, Yeah, and I don't want it.
You don't want that, okay.
I like the Android system.
Well, I will tell you I've been testing the the S twenty three f E, which is Samsung's newest phone, and it is a great device. If it's I would check to make sure it's compatible with the system, which I would assume it is. If if they're saying the newer phones are, that phone is three hundred and ninety nine dollars right now. It was six hundred when it came out, but they have been discounting it, So I would check into that phone. The Samsung Galaxy S twenty three FE FE stands for sam.
Make sure I got the twenty three whats f.
E F as in Frank e as an echo. So yeah, so I would. And that's the FI, the twenty the S twenty three f E and that's the latest and greatest from Samsung on their more budget line, so which you have the essay is their flagship line. This is just it's almost one step below, but it's still really good for the For the value you're getting out of this phone, I think it is fantastic. So I would check into that device. And I know it's four hundred dollars, but I think that true.
Varieton that's been my carrier. They're offering me three hundred dollars off or three hundred dollars off, and if it's only three hundred dollars and it's new, yeah, and I really I don't quite understand when the hook is.
Well, the hook is that you have to stay with Verizon for three years or two to three years on that plan. But if you're if you're there anyway and you're not leaving, then you might as well take advantage you've been a customer. If they're giving you three hundred dollars off or whatever it is, then and they do offer it, I just confirmed I'm looking on the website. So I think, Neil, I think you got a little
trip to Verizon in your future. And I think these hearing aids are going to work really nice and you're gonna be a lot happier.
Thank you very much, Rick, Happy have a good holiday and good safe for your rest of the weekend. Thanks for your couri.
Thank you, Neil, appreciate it, and happy holidays to you as well. Thanks for the call. I love getting calls like that where we can really help someone kind of work through. I think Neil already knew the answer, you know what I mean, Like he knew what he wanted to do. He just wanted that validation of Hey, Rich, am I missing something here? Or do I need to upgrade? And yes, the answer is it is time. And I think he'll be rocking a new S twenty three fe
probably by tomorrow, I'm thinking. And I don't care if he said Rick. You know what, so many people call me Rick, called myself Rick. My mom calls me Richard when she's mad at me, or actually.
Just in general.
I can't say what my wife calls dude when she's mad at me.
That's a whole nother show.
Eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. This is Rick on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hang out with you, having a great old time talking technology. Isn't technology fun? That's the whole point of the show is that it doesn't have to be scary. It doesn't have to be something you don't understand. It doesn't have to be something you don't deal with because you don't want to break something. Have fun with it,
experiment with it. You're not gonna break anything. I mean, if you do, you can call me triple eight rich one oh one eighty eight seven four to two four.
One zero one.
Uh what was I this week? I had a fun experience. I uh threw out T shirts at a basketball game here locally in La, the Clippers.
You might have heard of them. It was cool.
I've never been on the court at a game, and it was such a wild experience because a You're under a lot of pressure to like throw this thing, like I'm like, oh gosh, like people are gonna be watching me throw, And I thought I did a good job. The thing went way further than I thought, Like I'm talking what's the two hundreds, you know, like not like.
The floor level like up above. I was like I was almost there.
And then the other thing I noticed is that when you have that many people in one place kind of looking at you, it's almost as if nobody's looking at you because there's so much going on that I thought it was like all eyes on me, oh my gosh, but no, it turned out to be almost the opposite, where there's so much to see and there's so much things, so many things happening, that you just kind of get
lost in this whole world. So anyway, I guess if your tailor swift up there, you know, one person speaking to everyone.
That's different.
But when you're just kind of down there, you're you're kind of in with a lot of different people and things.
So anyway, it's a fun experience.
If you want to see the throw that I did, you can go to my Twitter Twitter dot com slash rich on Tech, go to my profile and hit highlights and you can see. The first highlight is the video of me throwing out the T shirt at the Clippers game.
Let me know what you think of my technique.
They slowed it down because the folks at the TV station were impressed with my throw. I was like, oh, all that football practice with my son in the street has paid off. Something else I tried this week Microsoft Office on the meta Quest. Yes, you can now do word,
Excel and PowerPoint in virtual reality. I had to download this and try it for myself, so I charged up the meta Quest, I downloaded the app, which is very tiny, it's only like a megabyte, And next thing you know, I am typing a word document in virtual reality on a screen floating in front of me. And it's mixed reality, which means you still see your surroundings, but you see
this big computer screen with a word document. Now I was using voice command, or I was just using the on screen keyboard, but you can connect a Bluetooth keyboard or a mouse. But this is pretty wild. I mean, I don't think that I would end up using this in a big way, but I immediately was like, oh, I wonder if I should check my email this way, because sometimes you can dictate an email response faster than
you can write it or type it out. And so I could see myself sitting there for like an hour and just going through emails and like verbally saying the responses. But again, if you want to try this out, just fire up the metaquest. This is Meta's virtual reality headset. Open up the store and search for Microsoft Office, or you can search for word, Excel or PowerPoint.
You download it, you sign in.
Signing in was the trickiest part because you have to type in your password on the on screen keyboard. But I guess if you have a mouse or keyboard or connected, that'd be easier. I guess that's the whole idea of that MIC of the Apple one, the headset they're coming out with, that you'll be able to do work in virtual reality.
I don't know how realistic that is, but we'll see.
Speaking of Apple, they're now selling a ninety nine dollars standalone USB C case for the AirPods Pro two. So when the AirPods Pro two came out, they had the USB C case and Apple said at that time they were not going to sell the case separately.
Well, how things have changed in a couple of months.
So now if you have the AirPods Pro two, but you have that lightning connector on the bottom and you want the USB C connector just because you have money to burn, then you can do this.
You can upgrade for ninety nine bucks.
Now, in all seriousness, if you did upgrade, the only way I'd recommend doing this is if you upgraded to the iPhone fifteen Pro or sorry, the iPhone fifteen Pro or iPhone fifteen and you have now a USB C cable for your charger and you don't want to carry a separate lightning cable for your AirPods, And so that's the only reason I'd say maybe you would upgrade your case. But otherwise, I mean, just stick with what you got. It's the same exact air pods. The only difference is
that they have a precision finding in the case. And this little speaker. So if you lose your stuff a lot, you know, maybe you would want the case because you could be able to find it easier. Again, you're not gonna be able to get this before the holidays. It's not shipping until December twenty seventh, so just keep that
in mind. This was interesting on Reddit. Someone posted a picture of a one of those things where you're surfing the web and it's saying like, oh, we got to verify you are who you say you are where our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. This page checks to see if it's really you sending the requests and not a robot. And so someone said, why is this happening every time I search in Safari? And I've actually seen this happen on my phone, and I
was wondering, like, what am I doing differently? And here's the answer. It sounds like this is a byproduct of this new feature called iCloud Private Relay, And so on the Apple devices they added this thing that basically protects your privacy a little bit more for free called iCloud Private Relay. Protects your IP address and it masks your
browsing for increased privacy. But when you do this, it triggers the security warnings on certain websites like Google, and that means you have to click this thing that says I'm not a robot, you know, and you have to like pick those pictures that says show me, select all the pictures that have a bicycle in them. And you're sitting there for like ten minutes looking at this thing and you're like, I don't know, is that a bicycle?
It looks like a bike, And it ends up taking longer to do this than if you were actually just I don't know. So if you ever come across this this warning page that says our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer at work and you are wondering why this is happening, you can go into your settings on the iPhone and switch off the iCloud Private relay or if you're using a VPN sometimes that will trigger it as well. Let's go to Jerry in Pennsylvania. Jerry, you're on with Rich.
Hi, Rich, Rich, are you familiar with a LABELB camera?
I think I've heard of it, but I'm not I've not used it.
What is it?
Well, you threw it into a light bulb shone.
Oh yeah, okay, yeah, I've heard of this for sure.
Got pin and silk. Ye as I can only vi it see it on my on my cell phone, my Android cell phone, And I was wondering, you do have anyone I could see it on my Windows PC?
Windows. I believe you can.
Uh oh gosh, now you're really testing me here. Uh.
I believe you could run certain Android apps on your PC?
Right?
Yeah?
Well what about the Is the app available in the Amazon App Store or no?
Or so?
Yeah?
Like Amazon, Amazon has its own app store for Windows eleven which lets you run Android apps on Windows. Oh you have ten, Well it may it may work with ten. I just I know it's I know it's on eleven, but it may work on ten.
But if I have checked the YouTube and the web all that, and nobody's done a solution for it.
Well yeah, because it's just not you know this is it probably runs through an Android app, right and that's it?
Yeah?
Yeah, So, I mean I don't know if you'll be able to.
Like I'm looking at Microsoft and it just says you can't do it.
Huh? What about this? What about this blue stacks? Have you looked into that.
I would think movie, right, Yeah.
That's the emulator. Does that work?
I don't know, but before I go through a whole bunch of stuff, it doesn't work, if I ask you.
Yeah, No, I I have not run an Android app on my computer, and I I understand why you'd want to do this.
What about this phone link? Have you looked into that?
No?
I haven't. I haven't looked at anything. Okay, options, you know? Yeah, why spend time with doing something it's not gonna work.
Yeah, well, I'm gonna That's exactly what I'm gonna do now that you asked me this question. So now I'm gonna I'm gonna whenever I get stumped with something, I go home and I actually test it all out, and then I'll have a better answer. So next week I'll probably have a better answer for you, Jerry. But I understand that you why you'd want to do this. But I think the reality is the Android app is probably these are like the light bulb cameras you buy an Amazon Right.
That's correct. I got three four hundred bucks to sell whatever?
Now?
Oh wow, okay, hey Richie, rich how's West Pizza get her to Jersey Pizza?
Oh?
My gosh, Well, that's an easy question. It's horrible. We don't.
I don't think they even have Hogies out and California. But I will say I did find one pizza place in Los Angeles that has pizza that rivals what I can get in New Jersey or New York. And I'm not kidding it is. It is fantastic. It's called Mulberry Street and it is a guy. I think he's from like Hoboken or something, but it is. It is fantastic. Now, by the way, Jerry, you know in Pennsylvania, I was driving through and there is actually a place called Demuro's Pizza in somewhere in Pennsylvania.
Yeah, Philadelphia.
Okay, I just searched. This is in Pittstown. Is that near you?
That's about a o that's almost in the middle of Pennsylvania.
Okay.
Well, I was driving through for a story one time. I was on a chute and I walked. I was like, I can't believe this says Demuro's Pizza. And I almost went in, but I didn't, but I took a picture outside in the car. All right, Jerry, thanks, I will have a better answer for you next week.
Okay.
I'll follow up on this, No, I'll I'll just talk about it on the show. I'm going to test it out and see what I come up with. Okay, rich all right, thanks for calling today, appreciate it.
All right.
Coming up, we are going to do the feedback segment. That's where I talk about the emails and the texts and the different things.
You've sent me over the week.
And if you have a solution for Jerry, let me know on my social media. I'm at rich on Tech. Coming up more rich on Tech right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Did you watch the Taylor Swift home concert? Okay, so if you're listening to the podcast, we are playing a Taylor Swift song right now, Cool Summer. I'm sure a lot of people are watching that over the last week. Okay, So before we get to feedback,
a couple of things. Number One, we got a lot of emails about this whole seventeen when iOS seventeen came out, Apple st letting people change the default notification sound on the iPhone. But I'm happy to report in the latest version of the software seventeen point two, you can actually change the default notification sound to whatever you want it's back, So open up the settings app, go to sounds and
haptics and choose your default alert. You can choose from built in sounds or no sound, or whatever you want. So that's a new thing. That is a oh gosh, that was a huge thing people, you know they it just went away, the ability.
To do that.
If you want to search for homes using car play, Rocket Homes has a new AI driven app allowing users to browse nearby homes for sale while you drive. I actually think this is pretty smart. So you fire this up on your infotainment system on your car, and then as you're driving around, you can see the houses that are for sale in that neighborhood, so you can see how much they cost, you can look at them. I think that's a pretty smart idea. Again, it'st called Rocket Homes.
I was in aware that they had an app for looking at homes, but now I do, and I guess that's why they did it. FCC has voted to ban termination fees for cable and satellite services. They passed to measure to ban early termination fees that you have to pay if you cancel your cable or satellite service. These have been a mainstay, especially for satellite for so long. Customers are obviously frustrated about this. Companies would also have to provide a pro rated credit or rebate to customers
who cancel their service before the contract ends. A lot of these companies used to do that, say oh, you're halfway through your billion cycle. We'll give you a credit of fifteen dollars that's what you have left. And then they said, never mind, we don't do that anymore. They make a lot of money on that, so they'd have to refund that. Cable companies could lose out and an estimated twenty eight billion dollars a year because of this ban. It's not a done deal just yet, but it sounds
like it's probably going to happen. FCC has to do a final vote after public comment on it, and Volvo and charge Point have launched fifty fast chargers at fifteen Starbucks stores. This is a fast charging network at Starbucks between Denver and Seattle. It's strategically located between these two locations so that you have a charger every one hundred miles basically. And that's the whole point is to give these ev drivers a little bit of peace of mind.
And you know I've talked about the issues with charging all kinds of evs that are not Tesla's. So the fifteen Starbucks stores that have these, and these are Volvo branded, but anyone can use them. Seattle is a quad. I should know how to say that. Yakama my first job ever in a TV market, Oregon. They've got a bunch of locations than Idaho, than Sandy, Utah, Provo, Utah, Grand Junction, Colorado, Colorado, Colorado, Colorado. And I guess that brings you to, oh, the first fifteen.
So they don't have all of them just yet. Oh yeah, they do.
Okay, So from Denver to Okay, Seattle.
So if you want to take that road trip, I think that'd be awesome to take that for a TV story to take, like the whole road trip, all thirteen hundred and fifty miles.
Okay, let's get to feedback.
Laura says, have you ever discussed voice isolation on the iPhone? I just learned about it, and it's awesome. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but if you have the latest software on the iPhone, this isolates your voice. So if there's a lot of noise behind you and you're trying to talk to someone. This makes it sound almost like you're in a studio. And I've actually used this for remote radio hits when I'm in the middle of like a city or something. You pop this on and
it sounds like you're in a studio. So if you swipe down from the upper right hand corner of your phone and let's see here, you there's a mic mode. Oh, you have to do this while you're in a call. I was gonna say, I don't see it right now. So while you're in a call, swipe down from the upper right hand corner. You'll see a button that says mic mode and it's standard or voice isolation. And if you if you put that on, you're the person that's listening to is really going to hear a difference.
Let's see what else here.
Neil says, Hey rich in regards to the cable TV out, the short answer to the callers question would have been a splitter, But as you surmise, the deeper answer relates to whether the company has gone all digital, all protected, needing cable card. That's the bottom line. As you said, they want you to buy their DVR. Great job, answering the deeper question instead of falling for the easy answer. Neil always looking forward to the next show. Janis says,
saw your show on KTLA. Oh, this is a KTLA comment demonstrating the Minioki.
Oh.
I featured a portable karaoke system, and I find it's currently unavailable or may not become available. Don't you check availability before promoting something on TV? So disappointing? Janis, Yes, I do check. And it's funny when you put something on TV. Sometimes a lot of people go to Amazon and buy it all at once and it sells out.
Oh, let's see, so I do try that.
Ce Brown says, Hey, Rich, I must commend you for having Steven Aquino from Forbes on your show last week speaking. I too struggled with a severe speech impediment stuttering as a teen and well into my twenties. I'm now in my fifties and it shows up occasionally. Sometimes I don't know the triggers. I choose a technology path in college because I saw my stuttering as a barrier. I don't often hear people being interviewed like this, So thank you.
See Brown in Toronto, Yeah, you know what, I try to open up the show to a lot of different people, and I love having people from all different, you know, backgrounds on the show.
I think it really adds to the show.
Agnes says, Hey, Rich, Oh, here's the comment about the songs. I've been a loyal Katie, a viewer and podcast listener for years. I just haven't followed you on the radio. I do catch your rebroadcast. My only gripe is that when you and Bobo have some fun discussions about the intro outro songs he chooses for the radio, we podcast listeners don't hear them, so I end up listening to you going on and on about a song we don't know what it is. Could you quickly mention the song
next time when you comment on it? Bobo is causing me fomo. I like that lol. Thanks for making me feel smart about tech. Happy holidays, Agnes, Yes you got it. Steve says, you mentioned Starlink on the show. Thought you'd be interested in knowing. I've been able to text and even FaceTime with my friend on our trip to Antarctica because her ship subscribes to the service. Very cool, Steve, Thanks so much for your feedback. If you want to submit it, go to rich on tech dot TV hit contact.
We'll get it in a future episode. If you can believe it, that's gonna do it. For this episode of the show. You can find links to everything I mentioned here on my website. Just go to rich on tech dot tv for the show notes, and if you want these notes specifically, go to rich on tech dot tv slash wiki. You can find me on all social media at rich on tech. Next week, we're gonna do something fun. We're gonna have openphones. What tech are you thankful for?
Think about that and call in next week and let me know. Thank you so much for listening. There are so many ways you can s your time. I do appreciate you spending it right here with me. Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible. My name is rich Tdimiro. I will talk to you real soon.